Ted Hughes

Q: Describe the nature and character of the pike fish in the poem “Pike” or any question.

Answer: Ted Hughes is one of the most outstanding poets of the past modern age of the England. He became the poet laureate of England in 1984. Right from his boyhood he became interested in animal and birds. His interest in animal remained throughout his life and as a result, he acquired the excellent power of writing a great number of animal poems. He was so interested in animals that people humorously called him a zoo laureate. The present poem pike is an excellent example of animal poem. The nature and character of pike fish has been brought to a focus here. In the beginning of the poem, the poet gives us the idea of the violent and deadly nature of the pike fish. The pike may be of different sizes but their nature and character is the same. The color of the pike is unique it is a mixture of green and golden colors. Parts of their body is perfectly uniform, they swim in the surface of the water among the flies. Though they are small to human eye, they pose that they are very large in their own kingdom or world. They live in pond under the lily leaves and sometime dip in the water and look upwards. They are fierce and destructive in nature. They become killer from the very beginning of their birth. Even a newly born pike has the nature of doing harm to other pikes. Their jaws have the shape of a hooked clamp. They can bite and kill smaller pikes. The smaller or weaker pikes are always under the threat or at the mercy of the strongest pikes. So the poet rightly says “A life subdued to its instrument”. The poet then tells us about the fierce and destructive nature of the pikes from his own experience. Once, he and his friend kept three pikes in a glass jar with waters and weeds. One day to his surprise he found that, there was only two pikes left in the jar. Finally only one pike was left in the jar. The fact is that, the strongest pike had killed and eaten the other two pikes and thus satisfied its hunger level. Its nature is best reflected in the line “And indeed they spare nobody”. On another occasion, the poet and his friends found that a pike fish mercilessly killed another pike and plunged its teeth into the throat of other pike. However, there was an expression of a furious killer in the eyes of the dead pike fish. Thus the poets own experience gives us the idea and destructive nature of the pike fish and creates horrible sense in the minds of lookers.